How to highlight part of a JLabel?

Question

Before any one suggests HTML, I explain later why thats not an option here. I have a table that contains a column with text cells in it. I need to be able to highlight some

Answer 1

Thats a great answer, and probably the best solution. But an alternative that some might find simpler is to use a JTextfield instead of a JLabel for rendering then you can use JTextfields highlighting capabilities i.e

void highlightWhitespaceText(JTextField text)
    {
        text.setHighlighter(AbstractTableCellRenderer.defaultHighlighter);
        try
        {
            Matcher m = AbstractTableCellRenderer.whitespaceStartPattern.matcher(text.getText());
            if (m.matches())
            {
                text.getHighlighter().addHighlight(m.start(1), m.end(1), AbstractTableCellRenderer.highlightPainter);
            }
            m = AbstractTableCellRenderer.whitespaceEndPattern.matcher(text.getText());
            if (m.matches())
            {
                text.getHighlighter().addHighlight(m.start(1), m.end(1), AbstractTableCellRenderer.highlightPainter);
            }
        }
        catch (BadLocationException ble)
        {
            //
        }
    }

You can change the properties of a JTextfield so it looks like a jLabel in other respects.